Last week Nataliya and I saw “A Few Good Men” at the Little Theater of Alexandria. Perhaps many of you have seen the movie version with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. The very famous scene from the movie/play is when the lawyer (played by Cruise in the movie) representing two Marines accused of murder attempts to get the Commanding Officer of the base (played by Nicholson) to admit that he ordered the two marines to beat the one who died. Finally, the lawyer gets the CO in a rage on the stand, enough to scream out that he, in fact, did order the event to happen. During this fiery exchange on the witness stand, the lawyer screams “I WANT THE TRUTH”. In reply, the CO screams back: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”. Check out the link at the bottom of this entry to see the movie version of this scene. Jack Nicholson received an Academy Award nomination.
Okay, enough movie trivia and on to weight control: Why did I just waste 2 minutes of everyone’s time describing a movie scene? Here goes: There are lots of “truths” involved in weight control that must be dealt with for there to be any chance of long-term weight control success.
First, comes the confrontation about the truth of your weight status. When weight goes up, people tend to stay completely away from the home scale and certainly do not come in to us for free body scans. The “truth” of the weight number is distressing, upsetting and psychologically, people do not want to confront this truth. When this lack of awareness occurs, weight is sure to go up.
How about confronting the truth about what needs to be done? We do not like giving up the lifestyle components that provide immediate gratification. This is also a human nature issue. However, the truth is that we all need to change lifestyles to lessen carbohydrate and alcohol intake, take the time to shop and prepare meals, plan our food intake and exercise time, etc.
Now, let’s talk about handling the truth about what poor weight control will eventually do to us. Very, very few people get away with it, meaning that the markedly overweight/obsess person will eventually develop one if not many of the life changing co-morbidities of poor weight control. The truth is that the future looks far different from a health and happiness standpoint when a person is at a much healthier weight.
A final truth: Ultimately we are all responsible for what enters our mouths. There are many reasons (note I did not use the word “excuses”) why it is very difficult to control weight but ultimately no one forces carbs, high caloric snacks or alcohol down our throats.